Why do I need to send physical items to SCIS for cataloguing?

Our aim is to create accurate catalogue records, and the best way to ensure accuracy is for our SCIS cataloguers to examine the items themselves. This will provide the ability for optimal retrieval of resources by maximising the chances of your users finding and accessing the material they need within your library catalogue. 

Quality assurance

Without the actual items in hand, cataloguers may not be able to:

• fully determine the subject matter of the material
• provide full metadata such as pagination and the types of illustrations; this may matter for resources such as geography books where the number of pages or types of illustrations included is important
• retain consistency with author names via authority files so that full results are returned on an author search. By examining the physical item, cataloguers can determine who the actual authors are – sometimes the requesting subscriber might identify the editor or compiler as an author.

If any records contain errors or have incomplete metadata, the catalogue record that you import into your LMS may not match the physical resource, making it harder for students and staff to find the relevant material.

Compliance with international cataloguing standards

SCIS provides records aligned with international cataloguing standards, which rely on:

• the transcription of some critical metadata that comes from examining exactly what is on the item
• the identification of the item’s subject headings that should come from analysing the resource itself.

Physical items receive higher priority

SCIS prioritises physical items in the cataloguing queue. Requests accompanied by physical items will be completed faster than those which have only been submitted online (see How long does it take to have my items catalogued?).